Squire Sanders Wins U.S. Government Legal Services Contract For TIFIA Program

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Squire Sanders, a global legal practice with more than 1,300 lawyers in 37 offices around the world, is pleased to announce its selection by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), to provide legal services to FHWA under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program.

The TIFIA program provides low-interest rate, flexible financing alternatives for the funding of transportation projects throughout the U.S. via direct loans, loan guarantees and standby lines of credit, including the provision of financing in connection with public-private partnership (P3) arrangements for infrastructure financing. In July of this year, Congress passed and President Obama signed legislation, known as MAP-21, which reauthorized the TIFIA program and provided for US$1.7 billion in capital over the next two years for the credit assistance program.

"This is a significant new engagement for Squire Sanders. Our selection reflects, and will complement, our already prominent global infrastructure finance practice," said Scott Coffey, a partner in the Squire Sanders Project Finance Practice Group. "Squire Sanders is in the vanguard globally of law firms advising public and private sector entities in the procurement, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of large scale infrastructure projects. We welcome the opportunity to bring to bear, for the benefit of FHWA and transportation projects nationwide, our extensive and varied global experience and expertise in all manners of infrastructure development and finance."

Squire Sanders is among a small group of legal practices that will have the opportunity to bid for the provision of legal services to FHWA in connection with individual projects. Squire Sanders has the opportunity to provide legal services that could generate fees of up to US$15.5 million over the five-year term of the engagement.

Squire Sanders' global Project Finance Practice Group provides counsel to private and public sector project finance participants around the globe, ranging from local and special purpose entities to national governments, lenders to equity providers, and developer-sponsors to construction contractors and operators. Transportation projects include airports, seaport, railways, roadway and mass transit system, and the manner of finance includes direct and syndicated loans, private placements and public offerings, and both taxable and tax-exempt debt instruments. Squire Sanders has been nationally recognized in the development and financing of infrastructure projects in the U.S. since the early 1900s. For more than a decade, Thomson Reuters has ranked Squire Sanders' U.S. public finance practice among the top five Bond Counsel practices nationally (based on deal dollar volume).